Dina Mahmoud (Washington, London)
As the time approaches for Americans to head to the polls to resolve the confrontation between the two sides of the race for the White House, “Democratic” President Joe Biden and his “Republican” rival, Donald Trump, the campaigns of the two men are intensifying their efforts to gain the support of voters divided among themselves, amid opinion polls indicating a convergence in popularity. Competitors for the presidency of the largest country in the world.
Experts and political analysts in Washington revealed that the two campaigns are allocating a significant portion of their respective budgets, at this stage of the presidential race, to disseminate more propaganda messages through social media platforms, to address specific segments of voters, especially young people.
Analysts pointed to estimates prepared by experts from an American digital analytics company, stating that spending on posts of a political nature on social media in the United States is expected to double this time in the presidential election year, compared to its counterpart recorded before the 2020 elections.
According to estimates by the company, which bears the name “eMarketer”, the volume of spending on these publications during 2024 is expected to reach approximately 605 million US dollars, compared to 324 million spent for the same purpose in the period preceding the elections that were held four years ago, in which Biden competed. And Trump too.
However, experts in the field of the digital world pointed out, at the same time, that the environment of the communication platforms is different this time from its counterpart before the last elections, after the “Meta” company, which owns platforms such as “Facebook” and “Instagram”, sought to reduce the appearance of posts. And politically focused accounts imposed new rules on political advertisers, reducing their chances of reaching potential supporters.
These rules began to be implemented, in part, in the midst of widespread anger resulting from what was considered, years ago, an external attempt to influence the 2016 presidential race, which brought Trump to the White House after defeating his “Democratic” rival, Hillary Clinton. These measures became more stringent following the attack on the Capitol headquarters in early 2021, by protesters against the results of the presidential elections, which had previously resulted in Biden winning the presidency.
These rules prompted the Biden and Trump campaigns to reconsider the map of their digital deployment, ahead of the November 5 confrontation. The “Democratic” president’s campaign is now relying more on advertisements broadcast through digital means of communication, and recruiting more volunteers to mobilize support for Biden, on groups that are formed on instant messaging programs, such as “WhatsApp” and others.
As for the “Republican” billionaire, he has greatly increased his posts on his social media network, “Truth Social,” at the expense of any use of other more popular traditional platforms, such as “Facebook,” “X,” and “YouTube.” An analytical study, some of whose results were highlighted by The Washington Post, indicated that Trump’s Facebook posts declined from more than a thousand posts in March 2020 to only about 200 in the same month of this year.
In the same context, statistical data showed that the 25 most popular news organizations in the United States lost about 75% of the total user interaction with their accounts on Facebook, and approximately 58% of their interactions with them on Instagram, in the period between the first quarter and From 2022 and the same period this year, apparently as a direct result of the restriction of posts of a political nature. These data prompted American experts in the field of digital communication to express their concern about the potential effects of the continued imposition of such restrictions, stressing that this matter raises concern, not on the part of the Biden and Trump campaigns alone, but also among those concerned with the state of democracy in general in the United States.
In an interview with CNN the day before yesterday, US President Joe Biden expressed his confidence that he will win a second term in the elections scheduled for next November, stressing that his Republican rival, Donald Trump, “will not accept” this result, as he did in the previous elections.
Biden said that Trump “may not accept the outcome of the election.” “I assure you that he will not accept it.”
Trump said last week in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that, “If everything is done fairly, I will gladly accept the results, but if that is not the case, we will have to fight for the good of the country.”
On the other hand, Biden confirmed that former Democratic President Barack Obama, who was actively involved in the election campaign of his former vice president, advised him to “continue doing” what he is doing.
The American press recently published reports about Obama’s reservations about Biden’s election campaign, which opinion polls show is close to Trump in voting intentions, or even lagging behind him in some crucial states.
In his interview with CNN, the US President said, “I am happy with the course of the campaign,” especially since “the majority of people will not focus and make their decision until the fall.” Trump never admitted his defeat to Biden in the 2020 presidential elections.
Regarding that election, Biden asked, “How many court cases did he lose?” Trump, in reference to the failed attempts made by his rival to challenge the elections in some electoral districts.
Biden said, “This man is not a supporter of democracy.” The “Democratic” president praised the efforts made by his campaign to reach voters “by knocking on doors (…) the old-fashioned way.”
In response to a question about opinion polls indicating that Americans trust his opponent more when it comes to economic issues, Biden said that Trump “has never succeeded in creating job opportunities, while I have never failed.” “I have created 15 million jobs.” He added, “Our economy is the strongest in the world.”
On the other hand, Biden confirmed, as he always does, that the majority of foreign leaders tell him during the international summits in which he participates with them, “You must win.”
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